


Holding On With Both Hands

by Batastic_Grayson



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Anniversary, Best Friends, Bruce Wayne is a good boyfriend, Clark Kent Needs A Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father Figures, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Forests, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Portland Oregon, Rain, Vacation, Walks On The Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 14:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17024178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batastic_Grayson/pseuds/Batastic_Grayson
Summary: Jonathan Kent died a year ago of a massive stroke. The upcoming anniversary has left Clark feeling adrift and alone. Bruce plans a trip to the rainy coast of Oregon for a few days, hoping Clark will let himself grieve like he needs to. It's a gloomy, soft, heartfelt trip that unites the two even more than before.





	Holding On With Both Hands

**_Bruce_ **

 

I can tell when he isn’t acting like himself anymore.

It’s a perk of being lovers with someone for a couple years and best friends for years before that. You learn their body language in sorrow, the cadence of their voice when they laugh, how their brow wrinkles when they frown…the little flashes of being with someone constantly start to become a bit like a stained-glass window, shards of vibrant green, red, and blue. Time makes the image whole, until you’re left with an impression almost more complete than the person themselves.

Clark takes his coffee with four sugars and a generous amount of heavy whipping cream. He likes his showers hot, his clothes washed with Tide, and his underwear cotton. He likes flannel sheets, midnight snacks in bed, and Saturday morning sex. He gets up early and stays awake late, he keeps three pens in his nightstand and two in his car, mints in his back pocket. He likes pancakes with strawberries, slobbery dogs, drives ambling nowhere, and a phone call every lunch break. Tuesday morning breakfast at a diner, movie night once a week, and keeping a detailed journal.

He’s heroic, intentional, witty, brave to the point of stupidity…and yet sentimental, slow to anger and quick to forgive, intellect sharp as a tac and love like maple syrup. In short, Clark is probably one of the most remarkable people I’ve had the privilege of knowing, and further, loving so intimately.

Two years together and I’m still learning how to keep up with him. I’m still privately amazed that he’s even with me. He’s what I would consider “out of my league”, and yet…here we are. Sharing the same bed, the same house, the same life. Somehow, against the odds, we’ve found a way to be together.

But time spent together like we have…it makes it easy to sense when he’s fallen out of sync. The past two weeks I’ve quietly noted the changes in him, and I’ve worried in my own time. Twice now, he’s skipped the Saturday morning tryst we normally schedule so religiously, and he’s not been waking at 7:00 sharp. Sometimes he’ll stay in bed until 9:00 or 10:00 and I’ve even witnessed him drinking black coffee with dark circled eyes.

Something is definitely not right, and I’ve felt the shift in him like I would feel the upheaval of earth in the aftermath of an earthquake.

It doesn’t take long to figure out what’s been upsetting him. September 7th is a week away. His father passed away last year on that morning. Massive stroke. No one saw it coming. I remember the phone call as clearly as if it happened yesterday…a week of chaos and tears, funeral arrangements and memorials, quiet nights and distant spaces between us. We’d gotten through it together, but Clark had mourned bitterly. I’d done my best to guide him through it.

I’m not surprised to see that the upcoming anniversary has shifted Clark in a more introspective direction again. When the anniversary of my parents passes every year, I’m always surprised by how much it’s been affecting me even without my knowledge—as if my bones themselves know when to grieve without the calendar needing to remind them. It’s instinctual, I suppose. Something animalistic and raw.

Grief is cyclical—it never stops coming. So, in one way or another, you learn to cope. To adapt.

Unsure how to help him develop his own way of coping, I scheduled a trip for Clark. Something out of town for a few days before the anniversary. We’ll be back in time for the memorial with Ma Kent. There will be time to grieve at the farm surrounded by Jonathan’s things, watching Sunday football in his honor, staring out at cornfields full of memories. But for now…he needs clarity. Some space away from it all to ground him. Someplace he can remember the good parts of being alive, the ones that grief steals from you.

I chose the Oregon coast. It’s endlessly green. Rainy. Rocky shores, wind-bitten beaches, and good local food. Quiet people and even quieter coastlines. It’s a good place to think and remember. A good place to connect.

Clark is quiet most of the flight there. I suggested we take a commercial flight, first class, for the sake of normalcy. For once, he didn’t fight me. He’s staring out the window currently, one hand propped beneath his chin, the other tracing circles on the back of my hand between us. He’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, tennis shoes and baseball cap. Very Midwest America. Very Clark. If his mood were better, I’d probably try to tease him about the ensemble, but this time, I remain quiet and lace my fingers with his.

We climb from the flight onto the tarmac with backpacks tucked on our shoulders and hands joined. It’s misting, the kind of rain that feels more pleasant than bothersome, and I see the first semblance of my Clark when he pauses beside the stairs and draws in a deep inhale. His eyes shutter closed, like he’s trying to memorize the flavor of the air, and I feel his hand grip mine harder.

It isn’t until we’re winding through roads, forested by wide swaths of trees and foliage on either side, that Clark speaks. His voice is dimmer than usual, a lamp hidden beneath a shroud of fog, but it’s soft, reflective. Those shockingly blue eyes are watching out the window, gaze flickering over every leaf and bough fondly.

“It’s so…green,” he murmurs.

“Never been to Oregon?”

Clark shakes his head distantly, still transfixed by the woods. “Not like this, no. Brief flashes for disaster cleanup. Never just visiting.”

I smile lightly, risking a little bit when I take his hand in mine. It’s warm and giving when I draw it to my lips. I brush a kiss along his knuckles, worn from use and hard work, and I inhale a sigh. “Well, just wait until you see the ocean.”

He hums, and his eyes linger on me for a moment. They soften to a warm sort of grey, and there’s much that we say in a simple glance that we don’t say aloud. It’s enough for now.

We leave our bags at the small house I rented for the weekend. It’s a bungalow-style rental in pale yellow, overlooking the ocean from a craggy outcropping. A precarious trail leads through brush and stones to the beach below. We follow this trail quietly, having donned windbreakers against the gentle push of rain at our shoulders.

We don’t feel the need to say anything when we wander down the rocky shore, kneeling next to tidal pools and carving things in the sand. The wind leaves us both looking flushed as we explore, and the ocean seems particularly restless when she throws her hands up in foamy fingers again and again. Everything is painted in shades of cool grey, blue, and green so true it could be jade. It has the effect of drawing the breath from my lungs more than one time, and eventually Clark seats us on a chunk of driftwood a short walk from the waves to watch the tide.

He inhales a deep breath after we’ve been sitting for several minutes, his mouth bracketing with soft lines. “Pa would’ve loved this.”

“You think?”

Clark nods softly, and I see the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of lips when those eyes follow the relentless pattern of the waves. “Yeah. He liked the ocean more than he’d usually admit. I took him to Florida once. He said it was hot and too crowded.” He chuckles, but there’s sadness in the sound that wasn’t there before. “I should’ve taken him here when I had the chance. He would’ve enjoyed it more.”

I hum, studying the path of a gull as it flies ahead of us. The wind steals the sound of her voice away, but I can almost imagine her cry if I were to close my eyes. “My father liked the mountains. Every chance he got, he’d take me and my mother to the Rockies for family trips. Or so I’m told. I don’t remember that well.”

The conversation lulls for a moment, as it usually does when you’ve known someone so long, but it doesn’t surprise me when Clark eventually sniffs and bumps his shoulder into mine. “How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

He shrugs, gaze serious, intent. “How do cope with anniversaries? You always seem so…collected.”

I lift a shoulder, “Well, I’m a good liar then. There isn’t an anniversary that passes where I’m not a complete and total wreck.”

Clark frowns, this time at his hands resting between his knees. “Then how do you get through them? How do you…move on?”

“There’s no moving on, Clark.” His expression plunges to something hopeless, and I inhale a soft sigh. “I just mean that the pain doesn’t go away. Not entirely. You just…learn to manage it. When the anniversaries are coming up, I talk about them a lot. I look at photographs and visit places we used to go together. I cry, I scream, I rage. I try to remember where I am right now, instead of then. I seek those that I still have whom I love.”

I feel myself reaching for one of his hands, twining my fingers with his like an anchor rooting us to this spot together. His fingers are cold in mine, his cheeks wind burnt when he glances to me with shaded eyes.

“Look, Clark…it’s never pretty and it never will be, but that’s okay. Grief isn’t supposed to be. It just…is.”

 

**_Clark_ **

****

“My dad’s anniversary…it’s in a few days.”

Bruce is quiet for a moment next to me, but I can feel his palm, warm like a tether holding me steady. He’s started smoothing circles into the back of my hand.

“I know.”

I look down, feeling the lump that’s been climbing up my chest reach my throat. It makes my eyes prickle when I stare down at my tennis shoes absently. I’ve not been right for weeks. Something has become elementally…damaged inside me, and I feel about as in control of my emotions as a newborn babe. I’ll swing from feeling nothing to feeling _everything_ in a matter of moments.

                It’s grief. I know it is. But I suppose I had deluded myself into thinking it would be better this time. Maybe a year would put some distance between me and the ugly feeling of drowning from last September. Maybe, just maybe, I could pass over the anniversary and ignore the whole event. Maybe I could try to forget that it’s been a year since my dad died.

But that was foolish and I know it. The proof of that is in the stinging behind my eyes, the thickness in my voice, the tremble in my palms. I feel as fragile as wet paper in sand, ready to shred into a million pieces at the slightest word.

I suppose Bruce knows it too, otherwise he wouldn’t have brought me here.

I sniff, swiping a bit of the rain water from my face with one hand. “Is that why you brought me here? Because of the anniversary?”

He doesn’t hesitate when he murmurs, “Yes.”

“To help me get over it?”

Bruce shakes his head, and I catch the flicker of his pewter eyes when they rest on me, full of grace and love I can’t even fathom. “No. To help you get _through_ it.”

I look down again at my shoes, letting myself listen to the steady thrum of the ocean rising to embrace the sand. I listen to the batter of water against rocks, the call of birds slipping through wind, the soft sound of rain striking a million places at once. Distantly, the trees from the thick woods brush together like fabric against skin, the wood from their roots creaking with the movement. It’s a symphony so loud, so gentle, it almost drowns out the overwhelming sorrow swelling inside me.

“Clark…” I look up from the earth to Bruce’s waiting expression. His eyes have paled to soft silver, almost liquid it’s so light, and a frown is pressing tiny lines into his skin. “Babe, I didn’t bring you here so you would be happy. I brought you here, so you could remember how to mourn. I brought you here, so you wouldn’t be alone when you did.”

As it turns out, my sorrow doesn’t want to be drowned at all. It doesn’t want to be smothered or ignored. It wants to be let out. And let out it is. It’s a few seconds of forced composure, when Bruce grasps my hand tight and his eyes tell me how much he understands what this pain is, before I completely fall apart. My shoulders bow inwards and I bury my face in my hands with the kind of tears that usually echo childhood. I cry like I haven’t in a long time. Like I’ve needed to.

Bruce doesn’t try to stop me. He doesn’t even try to say anything. He simply pulls me into his arms and holds me tight to his chest. I cry there for several moments, undone with grief and sadness and things I wish were not true. It’s the bitter sort of tears that leave you drained and relieved, as if just giving them space to breathe gives them purpose. It’s a good cry, as my father would say.

When the tears eventually do stop, and I quiet again, I let myself close my eyes. I inhale deep breaths of Bruce, memorizing the smell of rain and laundry detergent and coffee on his skin. I let my hands grip his shirt too tight, trying to imprint the feeling of him on me like a tattoo. The grief of losing someone makes him seem so much more precious, so much more fragile in my hands. It makes the fear of losing him that much stronger.

I draw his lips to mine without preamble. I kiss him without agenda, tasting the saltwater of my tears and the brine of the sea on his lips. It’s a kiss that speaks more than words do, of broken thank you’s and remembered grief. Like a shout sent into the void that echoes back. It’s a union I won’t soon forget.

His skin is cool with rain, his hands gentle and soft against my back, his eyes even softer when we draw apart. Pain of his own seems to mirror itself back to me, two reflections meeting and joining hands between us, and I find that the shared loss tethers us even more strongly than before.

We rest foreheads together, breathing in deep lungfuls of saltwater and wind, tasting the sweetness of rain on our tongues. It’s a brief moment of intimacy defined by pain and comfort, something low like a cello’s keen stretching between us in a band of twisted roots. I never would have imagined that I could love someone like this, or that they could love me like Bruce does. It’s the kind of love I thought was only for fairytales and farfetched dreams.

_Do you love him?_

My father had asked me that once, over a cup of coffee in the pale grey of an August morning. Before Bruce and I were dating officially. We were playing with fire, but certainly not leaping into the pot. When the only person who knew I was desperately, madly in love, was myself. My father was always discerning though, and he could see how much I cared about Bruce.

I’d told him I wasn’t sure…that love seemed too simple a term. I’d told him I was terrified of taking anything further. What if we gambled and lost?

_Then that’s how you know it’s real. If there wasn’t any risk, then it really wouldn’t be love, now would it?_

_It won’t be easy, Pa. Bruce is…stubborn…and I don’t want to lose him._

_Nothing good is ever easy, son. Love isn’t easy…but it_ is _simple. If you’re ever fortunate enough to find it, you’d better hold onto it with both hands. And Bruce, well…he’s a good man. He might surprise you. Why don’t you give it a chance?_

It was that conversation that had given me the courage to tell Bruce what I was feeling. In many ways, I credit my father for believing in Bruce’s goodness more than I did even. He always could see people for what they were. It is a gift I often hope he passed on to me.

I press another lingering kiss to Bruce’s lips, breathing him in all over again. I think about how much my dad wanted me to pursue courage in the face of fear, how he was convinced I would find someone who could love me as deeply as I could love them. I think about his knowing smile on that cool, grey August morning. I think about how much he would’ve loved this beach. How he would’ve grasped my hand tight and murmured a soft, ‘ _thank you’_.

Mostly, I think about how fragile life is. How one moment it’s green, and the next it’s gone. I hold Bruce tighter, pressing him into me until I forget where he ends and I begin. I hear my father’s words ringing like a drumbeat in my mind, again and again, in time with the roar of waves and the flush of cool fog.

_If you’re ever fortunate enough to find it, you’d better hold onto it with both hands._

And so I do.

**Author's Note:**

> I drew inspiration for this piece from Ben Rector's song, "Green". If you have a chance, go listen to it! Thank you for taking the time to read this far:) 
> 
> I do not own DC or their characters. I do own this story.


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